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TV marathons

The New York Times recently wrote an interesting story about people "binge-viewing" TV shows—or watching all the episodes of a season in one burst—and how it's changing the way executives think about programming. It made me laugh to think how many times I've done that. Back in my single days, I went on crazy jags with Arrested Development, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Gray's Anatomy. Alex and I have done it with Mad Men and Homeland. We tried to do it with Breaking Bad, but I started having nightmares and couldn't handle it.

The funny thing about watching TV shows all in a row is that they get in your head. You start thinking like the characters with the same slang and intonation, and you almost forget it's not real life. At least, that's happened to me:)

I watched all of house of cards, damn you Netflix with 2 small kids under 5 made me tired days on end. So worth it, especially watching it here while living in Patagonia where there are few and far in between shows in Spanish. Loved house of cards and I am not even into US politics. You should watch it!

We love to binge on TV shows. The main reason we do this is because we don't have actual TV anymore, just NetFlix! Our most favorite shows that we have previously binged on are Dexter (could only do about 2 at a time!), How I Met Your Mother, Breaking Bad and Mad Men. Unfortunately we keep getting to the end and have to wait for the next season to come out. I wish we could watch all the way to the very end as I did with Sex and the City years ago!

I watched every episode of Friends week by week and then my sister got all 10 seasons after the show ended. I've probably watched every episode a tousand times. I can tell you the season and disk number of every episode. EEK.

I also just finished Lost. Still thinking about it...

Typically I don't do this though because I love being on the edge of my seat weekly (ex. The Bachelor...ha!)

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks it consumes me. Walking Dead, Breaking Bad and True Blood all gave me nightmares and I never got too far in any of them. Lost was a fun one. I couldn't imagine waiting 6 years to watch the story unravel.

I have done that with tons of shows-- Arrested Development, Grey's Anatomy, Mad Men... When my husband and I started watching Modern Family, it was just the day before the second season started, and we wanted to watch the entire first season in time so we wouldn't have to then wait for the second one t to come out on dvd, so we spent an entire day watching the entire first season, even though it meant we kind of neglected our daughter for the day. eek! isn't that terrible?

My mom and I did it with the first three seasons of Breaking Bad. Such a good show!! (I'm pacing myself now, though). I've also done it with Fringe, but now I just tend to go for 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and New Girl. A little more light-hearted haha.

Sons of Anarchy. It was terrible to binge watch though... you start to want a motorcycle, and tattoos, and stop washing your hair so much. Porn and drugs become common. So glad I didn't make any major life decisions when I was on that bender.

I've been a big fan of The Walking Dead for a while now (trust me, I really hate gory stuff, but for some reason this hasn't bothered me much). I didn't, however, watch the episodes back to back... until this weekend. Leading up to the mid-season premiere, AMC had a marathon on, so I spent a good part of Sunday getting a refresher. Of course, that night I had VIVID dreams all night long! Fortunately, there weren't actual zombies in my dream, but the threat of them and the survivalist feelings were so very real!

Oh and Friday Night Lights for sure... you can't watch hours of that show without becoming soooo attached to the characters! I've never felt so connected to a group of characters on a show before, but that's a testament to the amazing writing as well!

I watched all the seasons of Sex and the City after they were over and I binged on all the seasons of Grey's Anatomy to catch up with the current season! I also adore Gilmore Girls and have all 7 seasons, so I have marathons every now and then :)

I have been home on sick leave after having surgery on my ankle. In the last 2 months I have watched all 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls, All of Downton Abbey and most recently I have started Hart of Dixie. These are the shows I watch alone. My Husband and Binge on TV shows all the time. Our latest was Homeland, and we have caught up on The Mindy Project.

I honestly just did this yesterday while home sick with Girls. I have been wanting to watch it but couldn't get my husband on board. I watched all of season 1 and am caught up on season 2 now. And I kind of see the world thru Lena Dunham's eyes today.

Glad to know I'm not alone with having nightmares after Breaking Bad marathons! It really does get in your head. When I was in college I watched something like all 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1 in one semester...I definitely started intensely dreaming about that show! And I was briefly unemployed and watched all of Doctor Who and Torchwood...I was starting to believe it was real! (Or, at least, really hoping it was, haha)

This is the ONLY way to watch! Especially since full seasons of network shows are frequently interrupted!! Entourage, Veronica Mars, Game of Thrones (season 2 next week - woo hoo), Weeds, 24, Scandal, and even Clone Wars! I am in it to win it when I do watch!! Great post, Jo!

I did this with Babylon 5! Now a lot of our TV viewing is binge viewing, because of our schedules and how hard it is to get Baguette to sleep. We don't tend to watch a season at a time, but we will watch 3-4 episodes of one of the shows piling up in the DVR.

Without HBO, I was late to the Sex and the City party. A friend rented every episode from the library and we started watching them together. It was like crack. Just one more, we'd say to each other as we poured another cocktail. Just ONE more and then we'll be done...We watched them all.

I feel like this is the only way I watch TV anymore--Netflix binges! I started when I lived in China and you could buy dvd sets for a few dollars. It somehow was comforting to sit down and hear my own language for a few hours (err...all day long). I don't know what my excuse is now. I've done this with Firefly, Battle Star Galactica, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Homeland, Mad Men and am now trying to restrain myself on House of Cards and a Korean drama called "Pasta."

I've done it with lost, Breaking Bad (nightmares and all), Mad Men, Arrested Development, 24 and Downton Abbey. Also- working my way thru The West Wing now. TV binges are soooo bad, but I do them anyway!

I watched the first season of Girls in one day. My boyfriend and I watched the first two seasons of Game of Thrones over the course of maybe two weeks. Just yesterday we watched the first season of HBO's Enlightened. It was pretty good! I'm going to get either Homeland or Downton Abbey for Valentine's Day.

Downton Abbey, Mad Men, Grey's Anatomy, Arrested Development, Lost (for the first 3 seasons, then I was caught up and stuck with watching it once a week - definitely a downgrade!) and now I'm rewatching Buffy, my favorite show in high school, with all its '90s vampire-slaying amazingness. (Dawson's Creek, however, did not hold up). Binge-watching is perfect for sick days, lazy days, and blizzards!

My latest obsession is The Killing (the original Danish not the American remake), I had dreams, many many dreams. Before that The Wire, Sopranos, Six feet Under, Sex and The City, Girls and Homeland. And I can watch Seinfeld all the time.

my sisters & i had multiple Alias marathons when i was in high school. i loved having grey's anatomy marathons as breaks from studying organic chem when i was in college. most recently my husband and i had a friday night lights marathon, we spent most of christmas day watching it and plowed through the seasons so quickly!

When my husband and I went on vacation a few years ago we stayed in a house in Maine and it poured rain the entire week and we ended up watching the first two seasons of Oz. Not exactly romantic but it was actually really addicting.

My husband and I have been doing that a lot lately. We did it with Big Love, Breaking Bad, Shameless (the British version), Walking Dead. That's just to name a few. I just wasted my entire weekend watching 2 seasons of Downton Abbey. While I enjoy these marathons, there's definitely downsides to them. The soundtracks that get stuck in my head for days is a small price to pay, but the withdrawals that I end up going through after the show is over are a bit harder to handle.

1. LOST2. Breaking Bad3. American Horror Story4. Walking Dead5. a little Homeland to tie us over in between seasons and i'll probably be stoned for saying this, but I feel like it pales in comparison to the rest.

Yes, they do get in your head! particularly when the character is so well developed. I love me some Sister Jude, Jesse Pinkman, Tate Langdon, etc...

I do this with every tv series, for example Grey's Anatomy or Dexter or Dr House. I never watch them in time. It's so much more fun because I do not get to wait till next week to find out what happens when somebody gets shot or something.

Just this past week, I've jumped into an Ally McBeal binge. I was nine when the first season originally aired, so it's been fun to see the adult experiences I'm now facing play out in the context of my childhood. Plus, who doesn't love a good Calvin Klein powersuit?

I do a lot of TV binges and have done a lot of them in the past with my family. Things like The Big Bang Theory, Stargate SG1 or Psych.

But one thing I do every single year is watch all 10 seasons of Friends again. Every year. The episodes are so short, so I can easily fit them into my schedule.

My husband and I are currently binge-watching old episodes of our favorite German soap opera, Lindenstraße, which has been going since 1985. We've never seen the really old episodes before, and it's crazy to see how things have changed over the years!

I worked overseas for two years and would catch up on American TV shows in marathons. Arrested Development did wonders for my homesickness. I also loved The Wire and Dexter...rather depressing/morbid content but I can't imagine having the patience to wait for new episodes. Instant gratification

My husband and I go through tv shows like it's our job--we live on a farm in South Dakota with 2 small children, so Netflix is "where it's at" when the go to bed:)We just finished House of Cards-love. The Tudors was awesome-could.not.get.enough. When I was on maternity leave, we watched tons of CSI. When the hubby is out, I watch a loy of british soap opera/reality shows like The Only Way is Essex (on Hulu). It's like a more glam version of "The Hills".

Arrested Development was our gateway drug... Binged on Sherlock, first two seasons of Downton, Call the Midwife (so.many.hours.logged there!) pretty much any BBC Masterpiece Classics...Sometimes I skip whole seasons in real time, avoid any and all things written about a show, then binge when it's over!

Arrested Development was our gateway drug... Binged on Sherlock, first two seasons of Downton, Call the Midwife (so.many.hours.logged there!) pretty much any BBC Masterpiece Classics...Sometimes I skip whole seasons in real time, avoid any and all things written about a show, then binge when it's over!

The Wire, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Arrested Developement, Homeland, Californication, Shameless,and the latest...Game of Thrones I started calling my husband "my sun and my stars" and he would called me "the moon of my life"...LOL

oh gawd, this could get embarrassing. most recently, GLEE. I have dreams about the characters, and when my best friend picked up the phone the other day, she said, "Hey, baby girl, what's new on GLEE?" Guessing I've been talking about it a lot....... :)

one that I've also had a lot of fun with is Raising Hope. Have you watched it? It's adorable and clever and totally underrated. Recommend it big time.

i am literally doing this with curb your enthusiasm this week and suddenly having larry david levels of intolerance for other people's stupidity. i may have to take a break. i've binged several times on gilmore girls, embarrasingly but true: felicity and even twin peaks.

Oh gracious...I'm a college student and my boyfriend recently gave me his Netflix account password (so dangerous...) and I watched all 7 seasons of How I Met Your Mother in 5 days. Talk about a binge! So worth it though, I adore that show.

I binge watched the 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls. I felt like I lived in Stars Hollow and they were all my friends. Now I will binge watch a season whenever i am down or tired...it's such a comforting show. I don't know if it's the small town or the seasons or what but it makes everything all better.

the hubby and i just did a homeland marathon followed by breaking bad but i also started having crazy scary dreams so we had to stop. it's interesting that you had the same experience. we're now doing a modern family marathon. love it!!

It took me a long time to get into Lost but once I finally understood it, I had to watch 4 seasons straight through before the 5th started! I also kept missing episodes from the first season of Downton Abbey, so I finally I just watched the whole first season straight through when it became available on Netflix.

I watch the Twilight Zone ever time it's marathoning. I did this most recently with The Walking Dead over the past few weekends. These are shows I've seen over and over so they're mostly background noise. I don't think I could sit still that long. Scratch that. Netflix streammed - Fringe while on maternity leave and nursing.

Yep, we always do the box sets, Netflix or On Demand marathon run. Recent favourites are Homeland, Our Friends from the North (UK from the mid 90s, set in 60s-90s), Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Dexter. Back in the day it was SATC and Grays.

I watched the entire first season of Homeland last (Australian) summer as I took a train from Melbourne to Perth. Yes, the train ride was that long.

Have also done this with a shamefully long list of shows, but the BEST are Friday Night Lights (possibly the best TV show ever made?), Parks & Rec, and the West Wing (possibly the best TV show ever made?).

I'm in the last weeks of my time in Australia, so I'm trying not to waste too many hours binge-watching, but some days I just want to curl up on the couch and spend hours in another world!

I have done this with so many tv shows. Really guilty pleasures. Last year I watched almost every season of Beverly Hills, 90210 and started talking like Kelly Taylor, it was a serious problem. Currently I am doing it with Pretty Little Liars, again, guilty pleasure. Other shows, Californication, Sons of Anarchy, Mad Men, Homeland and Skins (UK).

I am totally in love with the TV Show Supernatural. Those boys make me laugh! I watch it with my boyfriend and since we live in Paris (for two months) we were aware of the fact they have only French television in their country so when we popped into a Virgin store and saw the seasons 3 and 4 discounted and possible to watch in our language (Dutch subtitles, English spoken), we immediately bought them and started to watch... as much as possible per day. Oops!I love Sex and the City, too bad it ended. And so now I watch Supernatural and I like watching The Big Bang Theory. Unfortunately I can't watch 'Wie is de Mol' every episode! It's a Ducht TV programme and is absolutely cool. Every week I watch it on the computer right now, live streamed and I am dying to figure out who actually is the Moll.

Love,Nancy

PS I also have taped a lot of Nigella Lawson shows and love watching them all in one. I simply love food.

My husband and I went through Arrested Development and Curb too! I'm still on Grey's (though i'm halfway through season 9-- trying to drag it out since its currently still on tv) and Desperate Housewives.... yikes now i want to watch more.

I've done it with so many.. currently: Pretty Little Liars!! I'm finally on season 2.. almost all of my friends are obsessed so I gave in and I'm madly catching up! I can't watch too many episodes in a row; kind of creepy/scary. But addicting! haha

It's the ONLY way I watch shows now! My very first marathon was for LOST. I was having a conversation with brother about this and he said something very true: you don't remember details as much when you watch as a marathon. It all blurs together. But still, I love when the characters become my friends.

In college, my friends and I had a "Felicity" marathon. We were so connected to the characters that we found ourselves blurring the lines between our lives and the show. We would say things like, "It was just like that time when Felicity..." or "That is SO something Noel would do." :)

Lost really messed with my brain! I still feel for it and we finished the series last year!My boyfriend and I also binge on/love: The Office, Scrubs, Weeds, and 'reality shows' such as Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, etc. And I really love episode upon episode of Biggest Loser :)

Like a lot of people we don't own cable either and Netflix/Hulu makes it really easy!

This is how I've done it with every show I've ever watched! Gilmore Girls, Grey's Anatomy, Friends, Mad Men, Downton Abbey, the list goes on... I never know what people are talking about when they're talking about the current shows that are airing... until I binge on the entire series a decade later!

At one point when I was in college I watched all TEN seasons of Friends in about 2 1/2 weeks. I didn't go to class or see any of my friends unless they were watching with me during that time. I was later rewarded with Friends: Scene-It!

I've done that with Buffy, but most recently I got caught up on The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (on youtube) over a weekend. It's only about 8 hours of content, but it's over 100 videos (as of now). So good!

Gilmore Girls! After I finished the whole series, it left me feeling empty and sad because for the time that I was watching it, I felt like I was part of their little town and all the characters were like my neighbors! Haha.

I am absolutely a binge-viewer. My husband and I just finished the entire Sopranos series about a month ago and just last weekend we pounded back the FANTASTIC House of Cards (which was the only reason we signed up for Netflix... but I've just got myself hooked onto two other shows now, so we'll see how much I can get before the free month trial runs out :)

This is going to sound crazy, but we do that with every show we want to watch, because we have not owned a TV, since we had our first child. I have watched: Friday Night Lights, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, The Wire...all in streaks. I love it! (and sometimes hate it, like right now I am waiting for Downtown Abbey to be done with Season 3, so I can watch it without everyone sharing all the secrets.)

Six Feet Under was a total mind trip for me. I binged so hard on it one summer. I would watch as much as I could before going into my job at a hardware store, and the entire rest of the day I would find myself assigning character's traits to random customers and coworkers. I'd help someone find something and think "oh my god, she's such a total Brenda" or "he acts JUST like Keith!" I would even find myself thinking from the point of view of Claire or Brenda. So, yeah. Really messed up.

At the end of the episode where Nate learns who kills Lisa all I could do was restart the episode and watch again because I was in such shock. It's a good thing there were only as many seasons as there were!

Oh goodness, as a college student this is my life exactly. In the last year i would say The Office, Arrested Development, Parks and Rec, HIMYM, Monk, Sister Wives, Doctor Who, 30 Rock, and now I'm currently on Breaking Bad. The comedies are much easier to do this with, especially those that are so short. Breaking Bad really is difficult, it's almost too heavy of a show to watch in just one sitting. But I'm fitting it in for all of my study breaks, and it's going much too quickly!

Binge-watching is nice in a way, because you get the whole story, and it's almost like a long movie. There are certainly good aspects of weekly shows, but I could see this binge watching phenomenon having a lot of good outcomes to it.

This exact thing has happened with me while watching Downton Abbey! I watched all three seasons on demand in about 3 days, and started thinking and talking to myself in proper English and with a British accetnt! Ha!

My husband and I don't have a television in our bedroom, so when we were first married, we would blow up our air mattress in our living room and get snuggled up in our pajamas. We would make pizookies loaded with ice cream on top and have Prison Break marathons. It was a fun, free date night!

Love this post!When we first got Netflix some years back, I watched only Little House on the Prairie and The Dick Van Dyke show for a month straight, at least (proof that my husband loves me; I'm still married to him even after he had to live through that). I'll still watch an Arrested Development marathon, over and over. Also "marathoned" Mad Men, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office, and Flight of the Conchords. We don't often takes breaks from our work to relax, but this is how we do it; late at night, while eating chocolate cake. Dreamy.

I love waiting a week for a new episode - it reminds me of being in Senior school and watching ER with my mum every week, falling hopelessly for George Clooney! My bf Alex however cant wait and so he downloads a full series as soon as he can and we start watching it en-mass. Californication, Good Wife and West Wing have been popular this year :)

My "worst" tv-marathon was last summer watching all Doctor Who episodes since 2005.The other tvseries I watch are weekly but I still watch them on the internet since I live in Austria and I hate the German synchronisations and they are way slower in viewing new episodes =)

homeland is amazing!! BUT i'm from beirut, lebanon, and i hated how they portrayed beirut is season 2. this image is so wrong! it has nothing to do with the real beirut! :)white collar is cool. damages too. revenge. nikita. so addictive.

My husband and I did this with Arrested Development, American Horror Story season 1 (I kept up with Season 2) and I'm now watching Sherlock from BBC America in binge sessions. The worst about giving me disturbing nightmares was American Horror Story, but I love the show too much to stop watching.

I watched Arrested Development when it was on TV, but since then have watched the series again many times, several episodes at a go.

But for authentic binge viewing watching a show for my first time I did it with Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who, Psych, Firefly, I'm Alan Partridge, and Torchwood, amongst others. Currently I am watching the US version of Being Human, with a bit more restraint my usual binge viewing. It is good, but it is so intense that I have to slow it down so I don't have nightmares! It does totally get in your head! During a huge snowstorm 3 years ago in Pittsburgh that shut down the city for several days I watched Doctor Who so much I completed almost all of the Netflix material, which was considerable. I'm not proud of that one. :)

My husband and I have done this with Grey's Anatomy, Six Feet Under, and most recently Freaks and Geeks. That last one especially stuck with us. It's only 18 episodes and I found myself missing the characters so much when it was over! It's truly an incredible show.

Oh my goodness! I watched all FIVE season of Friday Night Lights in like, two weeks. Not only did it get in my head, I began to believe that me and Tim Riggins were in a very serious relationship. I want to be Tammie Taylor, marry coach Taylor. Oh, and I bawled my eyes out when Smash got into college.

Oh my goodness! I watched all FIVE season of Friday Night Lights in like, two weeks. Not only did it get in my head, I began to believe that me and Tim Riggins were in a very serious relationship. I want to be Tammie Taylor, marry coach Taylor. Oh, and I bawled my eyes out when Smash got into college.

My husband got me to watch a Walking Dead marathon last weekend. I'll admit, I was hooked, but that night I had nightmares of flesh eating zombies and us trying to run for our lives...that ended it for me. :( Great show, well written, but I need to sleep.

We loved Breaking Bad! But I did have to take breaks from it at times when it got too heavy (like a good month or 2!). I wouldn't have watched if it wasn't for my husband, but I'm glad I did. I'd say just take it slow and not right before bed.

Oh lordy! Did it with Friday Night Lights and am now onto marathon madness with Breaking Bad, but the EXACT same thing happened to me! Had to call quits on it about a 1/4 ways through Season 4...the nightmares started to come on! Too funny! Can't WAIT to get back into it though.

A few years ago on Valentine's Day, my husband and I spent the entire day in our PJs drinking champagne and watching an entire season of How I Met Your Mother. It was legendary.

We also binge on The Wire. The show is amazing and the characters are fascinating. I can't watch too many at a time though. It definitely gets in my head and the plotline is utterly heartbreaking at times. It's a great show and worth checking out if you haven't already.

This post is hilarious! I feel like thanks to streaming sites it's really hard to avoid and everyone does it. I'm guilty of completing the Vampire Diaries 3 seasons in about 2 months, then there's Dexter, Homeland, Girls, the WALKING DEAD (which I'm so obsessed with, hence the caps) & How I Met Your mother. Tried watching Breaking bad but couldn't get into it!

We've binged on Dexter (first 3 seasons,nightmares too), Supernatural (All 7 seasons, definite nightmares there), Bones, Breaking Bad, My husband also did Psych.. It's true, for a while that's all we thought about, plus then after it was done we'd have this empty feeling, like something was missing in our lives..We'd joke saying we have nothing to do as a couple anymore!

I just recently watched all six seasons of LOST (I know, it took me a few weeks) and especially the first two seasons got me hooked up I had to stay almost up all night until ridiculous morning hours. I loved the fact I didn't have to wait until next week to watch another episode and was savoring it with pleasure. I've started thinking about checking MOONLIGHTING now... xx

I just recently watched all six seasons of LOST (I know, it took me a few weeks) and especially the first two seasons got me hooked up I had to stay almost up all night until ridiculous morning hours. My record is three episodes in one sitting :)

This is almost the only way that I watch tv now, Walking Dead and Mad Men are the most recent. But I remember watching Rupauls Drag Race, and I would literally talk like a drag queen for days. It was interesting. :D

Oh my God, yes!! It has happened to me with Sex and the City, many years ago, Mad Men, True blood, The Vampire Diaries, and the list goes on and on. It usually happens in the summer months for me, when I have a little more time to sit back and relax.

Oh Homeland! My family jumped on the Homeland bandwagon when everyone else was watching the final few episodes, but as soon as we started we were completely hooked! We couldn't wait for the second series to come out of DVD, but managed to buy it online (phew!), and just finished the last episode! I still can't believe how intense every episode was, as soon as you thought there was a lull in the action someone else would go and get blown up! Completely understand the rise of Tv marathons now!

I've done it with pretty much any hit TV show (and manymany others)... yikes! That's a lot of TV. I've been binge-watching TV shows for years now, probably since 2007, it started with Grey's Anatomy and House. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one to do this :D Netflix instant has definitely helped this addiction. Right now I'm watching The West Wing! I'm paying much more attention to politics as a consequence. When I was watching Downton Abbey a couple weeks ago, I couldn't stop thinking in a British accent haha!

I had never seen Lost, but everybody was getting excited for the final season. So I watched all six seasons in about six months, getting progressively more weirded out by the show. Then just getting angry at how stupid it was, but trying to push through. I couldn't wait til it was over, but I couldn't stop. That's pretty symptomatic of a binge! By the final episode, I was yelling at the TV every few minutes. It wasn't a great six months.

Haha. It's amazing what a phenomenon this has become. We did it with Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights, Downton Abbey and Breaking Bad. My parents had been trying to get us to watch Breaking Bad for a couple of years but I couldn't get past the third episode. But we gave in and started watching two weeks before our fifth child was born. It got us through the waiting period. We watched the last two episodes in the hospital while our newborn slept. We had to use closed captioning so as not to scare the couple we had to share a room with!

My fiance and I watched about 14 hours of Downton Abby in two days. It was crazy, we finally got up to get food. I felt like I was literally living in 1920s England by the time Monday rolled around !!!

I love doing that. i know it's bad, but it's so much fun.I've done it with Ugly betty. and i sometimes do it with one specific cooking show(Nigella Lawson, Alton Brown) i don't know if that counts, but it's a good time.